


bury a friend

by queermccoy



Series: Spotify Year End 2019 [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol, Bathroom Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, POV Richie Tozier, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:47:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queermccoy/pseuds/queermccoy
Summary: Now, at 41, Richie is six-two and broad in a deceptive sort of way. He doesn’t look big unless you’re really paying attention, and he sincerely hopes that you aren’t. It helps to stand next to Mike and Ben, who are both pretty tall guys. They all tower above Bill, who is generally leading the charge into whatever nonsense they find themselves in, which is a surprising amount considering their ages.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Richie Tozier
Series: Spotify Year End 2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564588
Comments: 13
Kudos: 80





	bury a friend

**Author's Note:**

> @dicktective asked for a bichie fic based on the 32nd song on my Spotify year end review, which was [bury a friend by Billie Eilish](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHC9tYz8ik).

Richie remembers being 17, already six feet tall and nearly as broad as he’ll ever be, and standing in Bill’s bedroom feeling too big and too small in the empty space. He was moving, his parents finally done with Derry and ready to leave the town that stole their son. Richie didn’t blame them, necessarily, but he hated them for leaving. 

“I could hide you on the farm?” Mikey suggested, punching Bill on the shoulder. They laughed and it was a little sad. The three of them were the last hold outs of the Loser’s Club, and they never heard from Bev or Ben or Stan or Eddie after they moved. Richie knew this was the last time he’d ever see Bill. He was 17 and that was the last time he would ever see his best friend. 

“I’m g-gunna m-m-miss you guys,” Bill said, hugging Mikey, then Richie. He was shorter than them both, by a lot he was shorter, and Richie had to stoop down for Bill’s arms to fit comfortably around his neck. He buried his face in Bill’s auburn hair and swallowed around a lump growing in his throat. 

They pulled apart, and Bill looked up at Richie with soft eyes, the skin around them crinkled and warm. He put a hand on Richie’s neck, fingers curled almost painfully into his skin. Bill was just looking at him, like maybe. Richie wouldn’t let himself finish his thought because it was. Too much all at once. He didn’t pull away, he didn’t move, and neither did Bill. They forgot Mikey was even there, honestly, until Bill’s mom called up the stairs that it was time to go. 

In a rush, Bill pulled off his sweatshirt and threw it at Richie. “H-here,” he said, and Richie held it in shaking hands. It was warm and it burned. 

“P-ut it on!” Bill urged, and Richie did. His arms were too long, and the shoulders were tight, but he got it on over his shitty band t-shirt. He looked down at his wrists, bare and uncovered and felt an unexpected pull down his spine. 

Bill touched his neck again, then he walked out the door. Richie listened to him run down the stairs. 

“What the fuck?” Mikey asked him but Richie just shrugged, Bill’s hoodie restricting his movements in a way that felt. So much. 

“I have no idea,” Richie lied, because he had some idea. He knew well enough. 

Now, at 41, Richie is six-two and broad in a deceptive sort of way. He doesn’t look big unless you’re really paying attention, and he sincerely hopes that you aren’t. It helps to stand next to Mike and Ben, who are both pretty tall guys. They all tower above Bill, who is generally leading the charge into whatever nonsense they find themselves in, which is a surprising amount considering their ages. 

Tonight, Bill is leading them, with Bev in the back to corral stragglers, into a bar. It’s their fourth of the night, and Richie has had five drinks. Two of those drinks were weak IPAs, so he isn’t drunk-drunk but he is definitely feeling it in his limbs and he hasn’t been able to feel his nose for about an hour. 

“Billy Billy Billy,” Richie chants, slamming into Bill’s side at the bar. He wraps an arm around Bill’s shoulders, and gets a thrill up his spine at how just, _tucked in_ Bill is. He shakes his head, but the thought doesn’t go anywhere. 

“R-richie Richie R-richie!” Bill shouts back, leaning up to yell it in his face. It isn’t funny, really, but they both laugh like it is. 

Richie isn’t 17 anymore, but he remembers the hoodie and he remembers the way it felt on his shoulders and the way Bill felt in his arms and how he’s even smaller now, comparatively. When Richie squeezes Bill and Bill squeezes back, here and now, in this bar, ordering their friends drinks, Richie knows what he hopes it means in a way he either couldn’t or wouldn’t recognize as a kid. 

It doesn’t really make any sense to Richie, who doesn’t feel like something to be desired. Bill looks up at him with lidded eyes though, and it makes Richie’s skin crawl as much as it burns. Bill is his friend, his best friend probably, other than Bev, and the IPAs roil around in his stomach. With his whole body screaming contradictory orders, Richie pulls his arms back into his own sides and tucks his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t feel joyous anymore. He feels kind of sick and a little dirty, the way he did when he was young and never really stopped, but this is worse because it’s Bill. 

“You o-okay?” Bill asks. His face is pinched now, careful and too close by half. Richie closes his eyes and when he opens them again, Bill is still just, right in his face. 

“I was just thinking about Ben’s abs,” Richie jokes, fanning himself dramatically while miming faint. Bill laughs, but draws his eyebrows together. Thankfully their drinks are finished, lined up on the bar. Bill starts a tab and tips the bartender before grabbing his, Richie’s, and Bev’s drinks. Richie picks up Ben and Mike’s glasses and the shot Bev ordered. They weave through the throng of other patrons. Mike gets up from his seat so Richie and Bill can slide into the booth, squeezed in between Mike and Ben. Bev sits at the end in a chair she stole from another table. 

The four of them are smashed together tightly, and Richie ends up with Ben’s arm around his shoulders and Bill half in his lap, touching him shoulder to ankle. It feels like a hot iron, and Bill keeps moving, making big gestures and wriggling in his seat, which is also Richie’s seat. He feels a little like he might throw up, and he takes a drink every time he feels like he and his dick can’t take it anymore. It does the opposite of help, but Richie doesn’t know what else he can do about it. 

Really, the mean part of himself, the part that wants to tell the truth and watch the people he loves shrink away from him because he’s crossed a line, hasn’t he? He’s crossed a line and made everyone uncomfortable and he wants to relish in that, even from the people he loves. He wants to scream in Bill’s face that he wants to fuck him, but he doesn’t because he’s a grown up and Bill definitely and absolutely does not return the sentiment, even if he did look at him while they were up at the bar. Even if he did when they were 17 and about to loose each other forever. That mean part of Richie wants to push him away, punish himself for wanting and punish Bill for- something. Richie isn’t sure. 

Richie isn’t sure of anything at all. He doesn’t understand what is happening. 

He has finished his drink though, and he makes Mike and Bill move so he can use the bathroom. 

After he’s finished and washed his hands, the ghost of Eddie Kaspbrak yelling in the back of his mind about germs and sanitation in a way that makes Richie miss him like a limb, he sighs and looks at himself in the mirror over the sink. He looks drunk, bleary eyed and a little sallow. It’s dark in the bathroom, the lights as low as the were out in the bar. He’s alone, so he takes his time adjusting his belt, his hair, holding his hands under icy water to pull himself out of his Bill haze. 

He doesn’t look up when the door opens, focused on the water and how numb his hands are getting under the automatic spray. A second later, someone touches his arm and when Richie looks up, Bill is there. He touches Richie’s back, hand firm. 

“I th-think they’re cl-lean, Rich,” he murmurs. He moves Richie out from under the water’s stream by pushing him into the wall next to the sink, wedged between the hand dryer and door. Richie watches in a fog as Bill, on his tip toes, presses a kiss to Richie’s mouth, which was, despite all of the warning signs, unexpecting. 

“What?” Richie says, instead of kissing him back, which is what he wants to do. His hands are flat against the wall. What does he want. 

Bill looks up at him and his eyes are hot. His hair is mussed already, but Richie wants to fuck it up, get his hands in all that grey. It looks so soft. Bill is somehow hotter as an adult with wrinkles and visible signs of aging than he was when they were young. Richie knows what Bill looked like in his 20s, in his 30s, because he internet stalked him after Derry. He has always been so handsome in an unattainable sort of way. Well. 

“Tell me ‘no,’” Bill offers, like it wouldn’t matter if Richie did. Like they would go back out to the bar and their friends no problem, no worries. 

Richie swallows hard, squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again. Bill is still waiting. He doesn’t look nervous or uncertain or any of the things that Richie feels in the pit of his stomach. “I can’t,” he says. 

Bill nods, grabs Richie’s still freezing hands, and pulls him into the large stall at the back of the room. He’s on Richie, hands on his face and his back, sliding inside of his shirt and into his hair. Like a switch has been flipped, Richie touches Bill, everywhere he ever wanted to. He bites his lips and pulls him close, leg up over Richie’s hips. 

“Fuck,” he says, sounding wrecked. It’s been so long since anyone has touched him, but this is Bill, Bill who was his best friend. Richie doesn’t know what they are now. 

“Th-that’s the idea,” Bill laughs before sucking on Richie’s neck. Richie swears again and cradles the back of Bill’s head. 

It’s Richie who moves so Bill is against the wall, Richie who bends to meet Bill, his larger frame boxing him in, Bill’s hands clawing Richie’s shoulders like a drowning man. “Bi-ig,” he breathes, curled fingers digging into Richie’s neck, and Richie doesn't laugh because he’s thinking, _small_. 

After, Richie doesn’t feel as drunk as he did when they started. His head is clearer and he knows it won’t last so he jumps at the chance to say, “A for effort, bro,” to lessen the impact of having Bill’s dick in his mouth. He’d had to sink so low to the ground to reach it, but Bill’s hand clutching at the back of his head had made the ache in the small of his back worth it. Even now. 

Bill raises an eyebrow. He finishes tucking in his shirt, which wasn’t tucked when he came into the bathroom and probably will look suspicious. The mean part of Richie preens at the implication, but he would also rather die than have anyone know what just happened. He can taste Bill in the back of his throat. 

“Don’t d-do that,” Bill orders, fixing him with a stern look that brokers no argument, but still doesn’t answer any of Richie’s unasked questions. He pushes up on his tip toes again and kisses Richie, sweet and firm, like his hands. 

Richie follows him out.

**Author's Note:**

> [Find me](https://queermccoy.carrd.co/) on the internet or just [send me](https://queermccoy.tumblr.com/ask) an ask with a number (1-100) and an IT pairing and I'll whip up a fic based on the song that corresponds with that number in my Year End Review.


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